International trade

Global merchandise export volumes, seasonally adjusted, declined by 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2024, following modest growth of 0.8% in the previous quarter. Developed economies saw a 1.2% drop in export volumes, after a slight 0.5% increase in the third quarter. Export volumes in developing economies remained stagnant.

Looking at the geographic distribution of exports by product group, manufactured products have the highest concentration of global supply from a few exporting economies since 2005. In 2023, its market concentration index stood at 0.20. Fuels (0.15) and agricultural raw materials (0.14) ranked second and third, respectively. The index of ores, metals, precious stones and non-monetary gold has averaged 0.13 over the last 19 years. Food is the product group whose exports have been the most diversified over the last decade, showing an index score of 0.12 in 2023.

In 2023, the region with the most diversified exports over products was Europe, as indicated by a product concentration index of exports of 0.07, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (0.10). Western Asia and Northern Africa (0.28) was the region in which exports were most concentrated on few products. Several Sub-Saharan African economies strongly engaged in the export of natural resources, such as Mali (0.82), Angola (0.80), Botswana (0.80), Burkina Faso (0.78), and South Sudan (0.77), were among the top fifteen with reference to the index. Tokelau (0.90) and Iraq (0.88) ranked highest.